Guidelines for Choosing Hedges for Kentucky Yards

M.L. Witt, R.E. McNiel, W. Dunwell, W.M. Fountain, W. Mesner

Hedges and screens can add beauty and privacy to the home landscape. Some people clip hedges for a formal look, and others choose to keep them loosely informal with arching branches. Depending upon the height of the plant materials used in your hedge, they serve many uses:

They are used to screen out undesirable views and provide privacy for the outdoor family living area.

Hedges are used to outline small living areas and to direct traffic within the yard.

They are used as barriers to keep children and animals in or out of the yard.

Hedges are used to mark boundaries such as along property lines, walks, or drives. This is effective in keeping pedestrians on the walk.

They serve as windbreaks and help reduce road noise and dust.

They serve as a background for plantings of perennials, annuals, or other landscape plants.

Birds and other wildlife find hedges and screen plantings a source of food and a valuable refuge during inclement weather.

Selection of Hedges

If placed close enough, any plant will form a hedge. However, the growth habits of some plants are more conducive than others for hedge-type growth.

Evergreen plants, both broad leaved and narrow leaved, are effective year-around screens, but they are also generally more expensive to install. They stay dense and green all winter long, so you will have the benefit of privacy throughout the whole year. Yews, hollies, and boxwoods make excellent evergreen hedges. Hemlock is a conifer that can be left natural in form,or it can be clipped without the problem of shoot dieback.

Informal flowering or berrying shrubs are often used as hedges if a year-around visual boundary is not a must. Annual thinning of this type of hedge is necessary to keep it healthy and in vigorous flower-fruit production. Do not shear these plants, but allow them to assume their natural shape. Flowering quinces, forsythias, mock oranges, and barberries are common hedges of this type.

Trees can be giant hedges and windbreaks simultaneously. They allow air to filter through and slow it down gradually. Lindens, katsura trees, crabapples, and arborvitaes are examples of tree hedges. An informal staggered arrangement of katsura trees makes a grove-type hedge that can be seen through.

Mixed plantings of trees and shrubs (evergreen and deciduous) make very attractive screens and provide variety that a single plant-type cannot.

Planting Hedges

Plants may be purchased growing in containers, balled and burlapped (B and B), or bare-root. Bare-root material should be planted only during the spring. Container or B and B plants may be planted anytime the soil is workable. Evergreens should be purchased only as B and B or containerized nursery stock.

Spacings for individual plants vary with the type of nursery stock and their use. For low formal hedges, space the plants 12 to 18 inches apart. Larger plants may be spaced 18 to 30 inches apart. Conifers may be spaced 4 to 6 feet apart if they grow wide at the base. The time required to achieve a hedge effect can be reduced by planting on narrower spacings.

For a double row of hedging, space the rows 18 inches apart. Stagger the plants so no two are directly in front of each other.

A length of cord or twine is useful in defining the location of your row or rows.

Training-Pruning Hedges

The length of time necessary to achieve the desired size of your hedge depends upon the type of plant chosen and its vigor. A dense hedge must be developed slowly. Never try to make the hedge reach its effective height in a single season.

Rapidly growing plants such as privet should be pruned severely the first and second season after planting. Shorten the plants by one-third to one-half their height after planting and after the first growing season. Subsequently, stems should be cut back at least 6 inches every time they grow 1 foot until the desired height is reached. During the entire life of the plant, thinning cuts need to be made to remove old wood.

Pine, spruce, and fir screens should be pruned annually by removing the tip bud or shoot on each branch. This technique encourages more compact, denser growth.

Broad-leaved evergreens such as hollies should be pruned just enough to keep the branches in line. Always cut back to side branches or buds.

Maintenance

New plantings should be cultivated frequently or mulched to keep them free of weeds and grass. An annual fertilization of 2 to 4 pounds of 10-10-10 or similar fertilizer per 100 feet of hedge will help to maintain healthy, vigorous plants. The best time to fertilize woody plants is in the late fall. Fertilizer applications should not begin until the first year after planting.

Rejuvenation of Hedges

Overgrown, neglected hedges should be removed and replaced with a new, desirable hedge. Neglected hedges are generally impossible to rejuvenate. With the exception of yews, most evergreen plants will not produce new shoots from the old, brown growth. Cutting plants back to within 6 to 12 inches of the soil line is usually a waste of time. Privets are an exception.

Zone 6 plant, but in unusually bad winters, may show dieback. Glossy leaves. Blooms almost continually in summer. Use as informal hedge. Excellent for textural effects. May be a little slow to make a thick hedge. Used often as bank cover, massing, or facing plant. Combines well with broadleaf evergreens.

Yellow outside; 2 to 5 flowered clusters, not showy since borne under leaves.

Red, lustrous

Forms dense, impenetrable border because of single spines.

Boxwood, Korean (Buxus microphylla koreana)

Evergreen, but foliage turns brown in winter.

Blooms early March, not showy butfragrant.

Capsule fruit

When mature, is 2 x wide as high. Grows to about 4-ft ht. Leaves less than 1/2 in. long or 1/4 in. wide. Three types available in Kentucky. Glossy, wide-leaved cultivar (Wintergreen) is not as hardy as dull-leaved cultivar. Small-leaved form that remains green during winter ('Tide Hill') is not as available as the other two types.

Place in light, moist, well-drained acid soil. Sun or shade adaptable. 'Green Island' is usually twice as broad as tall: 3-ft ht, 6-ft spread when mature. 'Glory' width is 3 x its height. Many cultivars, but most will have some stem injury during severe winters.

Place in full sun or partial shade, moist, well-drained location. Phomopsis blight may be a disease problem during wet springs. 'Armstrong' is as wide as high. Soft, gray-green leaves. Branches spread horizontally.

Privet, Lodense European (Ligustrum vulgare 'Lodense')

Deciduous

White, heavy scent is objectionable.

Lustrous, black berrylike drupe. Ripens in Sept.

Low, dense, compact privet that reaches 5 ft tall; can be cut to the ground to control height when it becomes overgrown.

Gray, small, waxy. Male and female plants required for good fruit development on female.

Average height is 9 ft. Varies between 5 and 12 ft. Grows well on poor soils. Yields wax used for making bayberry candles. Withstands salt spray.

Beautybush (Kolkwitzia amabilis)

Deciduous

Pink with yellow throat, bell-shaped. Late May-early June.

Bristly, 1/4 in. long capsule.

Grows 6-10 ft ht. Vase-shaped shrub, somewhat fountainlike in appearance. Place in full sun for best flowers. Old stems should be pruned out each year to renew plant. Flowers on old wood. Fast grower. Main reason for growing is its flowers; otherwise, is one of less desirable plants.

Pyracantha, Scarlet Firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea)Cultivars:
'Mohave': one of hardiest cultivars but has shown some winter damage.
'Kasan': generally hardy but has shown some winter damage.

Semi-evergreen

White, early June, 2-3 in. long clusters.

Orange-red, berrylike. Ripen in Sept. Persist into winter.

Full sun best for fruiting. Perform best in well-drained soil. Fire blight can be serious. Scab affects fruit. Branches are thorny. Orange-fruited types are usually more cold tolerant than red- and yellow-fruited cultivars.

Quince, Flowering (Chaenomeles speciosa)

Deciduous

White to scarlet. Mid- to late April.

Yellowish-green. Ripen in Oct. Bitter in taste but can be used for preserves and jellies.

Can grow to 40-ft ht, but usually less around Kentucky, 10-15 ft spread. Short, ascending branches end in flat, spreading horizontal sprays. May be single- or multiple-trunked. Susceptible to strong wind, snow, or ice damage. Tolerant of limestone soils. Susceptible to bagworms and red spider mites.

Grows 40-70 ft ht, 25-35 ft spread. Pyramidal shape. Hemlocks are very susceptible to drought in injury. Plants may die during extended dry periods. Very graceful plant. Is open in habit so it does not block view 100 percent.

Grows to 40 ft ht, spread is variable. Male trees tend to be upright in growth habit. Female trees are more spreading. Excellent, attractive tree. Must be grown on a good soil that is moist but well drained.